Japan's reigning individual World Cup champion Sara Takanashi captured her first Grand Prix title of the season in the third leg of the series in Russia on Friday.

The 16-year-old Sochi Olympic gold medal hope led after a first jump of 96.5 meters and followed up with the day's longest leap of 98.5 to prevail with a winning total of 263.7 points.

"This is my first (Grand Prix) win of the season so I am happy," said Takanashi. "However there are ski jumpers that could not take part because of injury so I can't say this result reflects my actual level right now."

Frenchwoman Coline Mattel was a distant second with 243.4 points and Slovenia's Katja Pozun was third with 234.6.

Among other Japanese competitors Yurina Yamada was 14th, Seiko Koasa was 15th, Kaori Iwabuchi was 24th, Misaki Shigeno was 27th and Yoshiko Kasai was 30th.